William J. Bratton, former Los Angeles Police Department chief and former police commissioner of New York and Boston, has joined NBC News as an analyst specializing in police counterterrorism efforts, domestic intelligence gathering and criminal justice.

The Comcast-owned network said Thursday that Bratton -- already a familiar face on TV in the aftermath of such high-profile events as the Boston Marathon bombing and the Christopher Dorner shooting rampage in Southern California -- would regularly appear on NBC News programs as well as on the company's cable news channel MSNBC.

Bratton, 65, served as L.A. police chief from 2002 to 2009. A respected law enforcement figure, he is currently the chief executive of the consulting practice Bratton Group. He also runs Bratton Technologies, which operates BlueLine, a global law enforcement professional social media network.

Bratton -- a U.S. Army veteran who saw service in Vietnam -- began his police career in 1970 as an officer with the Boston Police department.

HARRISBURG — The State Supreme Court has rejected Attorney General Kathleen Kane's attempt to throw out a grand jury investigation into whether she or someone in her office leaked investigative secrets to a newspaper to discredit critics.

Catasauqua police officer Scott M. Rothrock had already been stabbed once in the chest with a 13-inch butcher knife and was trying to block more thrusts as he lay on his back in a snow bank Feb. 23 in east Allentown.